Collaborative Research: Online Professional Enhancement and Capacity Building for Instructional Practices in Undergraduate Mathematics

合作研究：本科数学教学实践的在线专业提升和能力建设

• 批准号: 2111273
• 负责人: Timothy Archie
• 金额: $ 106.48万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-07-01 至 2026-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2111273&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Online; Professional; Enhancement

This project aims to serve the national interest to advance implementation and understanding of effective practices in delivering online teaching- and learning-focused professional development to undergraduate mathematics educators. Current models for effective professional development often are expensive and restrictive regarding who can participate, largely because they require travel and other support that is neither universally available to individuals nor sustainable in the long term by institutions and individuals, thus limiting the potential impact. To this end, the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (UCB) will implement and study a new online teaching- and learning-focused professional development program which will reach higher education professionals, including those who have been less able to travel due to various constraints. The impetus will be to determine effective use of online tools and practices to deliver professional training around themes of active learning in the mathematics classroom, leading to broad impact on mathematics instruction throughout the country, as well as the development of a large cadre of people with this skill set. In line with this, the project will incorporate explicit efforts to build this capacity by training new workshop providers, including those who have had and continue to have scant opportunities to travel for professional development. The project will activate two levers for change at two levels: (1) empowering individuals to make research-based changes to their teaching that will enhance student learning, and (2) shaping their departmental and disciplinary cultures to support those changes. By hosting over 40 workshops and directly serving some 1000 mathematics instructors, the project will make a lasting impact on participant knowledge, skills, and uptake of research-based instructional strategies in inclusive undergraduate mathematics instruction. These effects, in turn, will reach into undergraduate mathematics classrooms to benefit many thousands of students across the country for many years, and across all types of institutions.This collaborative project will bring together the MAA, a long-standing source of professional development in pedagogy, curriculum, and inclusion for post-secondary mathematics, and UCB’s Ethnography & Evaluation Research (E&ER) group, an independent research group with rich experience in measuring effectiveness of professional development and institutional change in STEM. The project will operate at multiple levels to achieve several underlying goals. First, planning, implementing, evaluating, and researching the workshops to generate new knowledge regarding best practices for online professional development models. Second, creating a professional network that aligns community needs with content expertise, provides administrative support for managing complex processes, and directs a communication plan to reach into underserved areas of the mathematics community. Third, attracting instructors with varying interests by addressing a variety of mathematical topics, content areas, and tools. Fourth, emphasizing research-based approaches to instruction, course design, assessment. And finally, developing strategic use of synchronous and asynchronous approaches and, overall, developing best practice models for intensive and extended online workshops. All workshops will create an inclusive classroom environment under the framework offered by the MAA Instructional Practices Guide (2018), a compendium of research-based approaches to teaching. The project design is firmly grounded in scholarship on effective instruction, professional learning, system change, and measurement. The E&ER investigators will apply a research-with-evaluation approach to measure impact of online professional development, employing Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior coupled with a component perspective of Century et.al. to implementing innovations, as conceptual frameworks for measuring individual instructors’ growth and implementation and how these depend on their professional backgrounds and instructional contexts. Mirroring the multiple levels in which the project will operate, E&ER will also track the growth of professional development leaders who take part in project trainings, and will evaluate, research, and disseminate findings on effective evidence-based techniques for online professional development. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目旨在为国家利益服务，以推进实施和理解为本科数学教育工作者提供在线教学和以学习为中心的专业发展的有效做法。目前有效的专业发展模式往往费用昂贵，而且对谁可以参与有限制，主要是因为这些模式需要旅行和其他支助，而这些支助既不是人人都能获得的，也不是机构和个人长期可持续的，从而限制了潜在的影响。为此，美国数学协会（MAA）和科罗拉多大学博尔德分校（UCB）将实施和研究一项新的在线教学和学习为重点的专业发展计划，该计划将覆盖高等教育专业人士，包括那些由于各种限制而不太能够旅行的人。推动力将是确定有效使用在线工具和实践，围绕数学课堂主动学习的主题提供专业培训，从而对全国各地的数学教学产生广泛影响，并培养大批具备这一技能的人才。根据这一点，该项目将通过培训新的讲习班提供者，包括那些过去和现在很少有机会为专业发展旅行的人，明确努力建设这一能力。该项目将在两个层面上激活两个变革杠杆：（1）赋予个人权力，使其能够对教学进行基于研究的变革，以提高学生的学习能力，以及（2）塑造他们的部门和学科文化，以支持这些变革。通过举办40多个研讨会，并直接为约1000名数学教师服务，该项目将对参与者的知识，技能和包容性本科数学教学中基于研究的教学策略的吸收产生持久的影响。这些影响将反过来影响到本科数学课堂，使全国各地的数千名学生受益多年，并跨越各种类型的机构。这个合作项目将汇集MAA，一个长期的专业发展来源，在教育学，课程，并纳入中学后数学，和UCB的人种学评估研究（E ER）组，一个独立的研究小组，在测量专业发展和STEM的制度变革的有效性方面拥有丰富的经验。该项目将在多个层面运作，以实现若干基本目标。首先，规划，实施，评估和研究研讨会，以产生有关在线专业发展模式的最佳实践的新知识。第二，创建一个专业网络，使社区需求与内容专业知识相一致，为管理复杂的流程提供行政支持，并指导沟通计划，以深入数学界服务不足的领域。第三，通过解决各种数学主题，内容领域和工具来吸引具有不同兴趣的教师。第四，强调研究性教学、课程设计、评价。最后，发展同步和异步方法的战略使用，总体而言，为密集和扩展的在线研讨会开发最佳实践模式。所有研讨会将在MAA教学实践指南（2018年）提供的框架下创造一个包容性的课堂环境，这是一个基于研究的教学方法的汇编。该项目的设计是牢固地建立在有效的教学，专业学习，系统变革和测量奖学金。E ER研究人员将采用一种研究与评估方法来衡量在线专业发展的影响，采用Ajzen的计划行为理论，结合世纪等人的组件视角来实施创新，作为衡量个人教师成长和实施的概念框架，以及这些如何取决于他们的专业背景和教学环境。为了反映该项目将在多个层面上运作，E ER还将跟踪参加项目培训的专业发展领导者的成长，并将评估，研究和传播有关在线专业发展的有效循证技术的研究结果。NSF IUSE：EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过机构和社区转型的轨道，该计划支持的努力，以改变和改善高等教育机构和学科社区的STEM教育.这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估支持.